How long have you been doing what you do? Holistic beauty therapy can be about helping people to sustain the peace of mind that lets them make the most of their time – but what about yours? We’ve put together a few simple tips that could save you precious seconds, minutes and hours every working week (and maybe give your own peace of mind a pleasant boost in the meantime!).
Consolidate your efforts
First things first, if you’re one of the many people who like to carry a diary, as well as maintain a portion of electronic planning – this is the quickest way to save yourself time.
True, perhaps a mobile device doesn’t quite have the same aesthetic as a written diary, but it can do everything you need it to do. For recording appointments and planning each aspect of your day, choose a cloud-based collaboration tool you can access from anywhere, and immediately put an end to duplicating information.
Schedule free time
How does this save you time, exactly? Well, how often do you have a plan which is laid to waste by an unexpected phone call, a lengthy session or just general day-to-day work and social problems?
If your schedule is utterly jam-packed, then it’s more likely that any unforeseen event will completely disrupt your plans. This can mean missed or delayed appointments, rescheduling, and catching up on your workloads.
With a little time free for yourself, you can compensate for many unforeseen events without disrupting too much of your schedule – and get a little break to relax on the days when everything goes to plan.
Anticipate more of the unexpected
Unfortunately, even if you make time for unanticipated eventualities in your schedule, some problems can become much bigger than others. This is why it makes absolute sense to take out some form of holistic insurance as a way of protecting your livelihood from any unforeseen insurance claims that could arise.
A basic package for holistic insurance will include both public liability and malpractice cover, which will cover you for the sort of accidents it’s simply impossible to plan for.
Don’t spread yourself too thin
How many different holistic services are you offering, and how many of them do you regularly practice? Consider whether your business plan is a little too broad, and focus on what you’re good at and what your customers want, primarily.
Centre of Excellence recommends that holistic businesses should focus on a small number of particular niches. It could be that you do certain things that nobody else in the area offers, so perhaps focus on these – your USPs – and the work you do most effectively and most often.
Advertising isn’t everything
Similarly, how much time and money do you spend promoting your business, and is this all worthwhile? A holistic beauty business owner who wrote for the Female Entrepreneur Association realised that 90% of her business was generated by word of mouth, and so cut her external advertising down to the bare minimum.
With social and digital media both so ubiquitous, it can seem almost obligatory to run a social media business page and maintain a website. However, essentially, unless either of these methods is going to prove productive, it will be nothing but an unessential tick-box exercise.